A Massive Wave of Releases
Hard Shark Games, an indie publisher, recently made headlines by launching an staggering 29 games on Steam in a single day. All of these titles were released in Early Access, a move the developer claims is intended to facilitate community involvement from the project's inception. This specific phrasing—«We're launching in Early Access to involve the community from the very start»—appears consistently across every one of the 29 titles released this September, spanning diverse genres including racing, flight simulators, and survival horror.
Questionable Development Standards
The developer's approach to updates mirrors the repetitive nature of its store descriptions. Several games, such as Starship Fighters and Streets of Rageness, feature nearly identical patch notes promising a 10% performance boost. This pattern of behavior, combined with the low-quality appearance of the games, has raised questions about the level of effort put into development.
Many of these titles appear to be built upon existing templates. For instance, observations suggest that Supermarket Life Simulator is heavily based on a common Unity store asset, with users noting identical imagery to existing templates. Such accusations of "asset flipping" are common regarding this publisher's catalog.
Is the Business Model Profitable?
The financial viability of this high-volume strategy is intriguing. Opening a store page on Steam costs $100, which the platform recoups once a game reaches $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue. With 29 titles, the publisher's initial investment for store listings was $2,900.
Using the Boxleiter Method, which estimates sales based on review counts, it appears the developer may already be breaking even or turning a profit. For instance, projections for just three of the released games suggest potential combined earnings ranging from approximately $1,783 to over $5,000, depending on the accuracy of the estimates. Even if these games are not massive hits, the low cost of production—likely involving pre-built assets—suggests that this rapid-fire release strategy could be generating a steady, if modest, income.
The Scale of the Operation
Hard Shark Games currently maintains 217 listings on Steam, consisting of 121 games and 96 demos. Despite the sheer volume of releases, player engagement remains remarkably low, with a peak concurrent player record of only 13 users across their entire library. While Hard Shark Games is highly prolific, it is not the most active entity on the platform; other publishers like BFG Entertainment and PlayWay boast even larger catalogs, having released 555 and 340 titles respectively.